Acceleration trainers allow an athlete and a trainer to work together to maintain or improve, inter alia, an athlete's acceleration, speed, strength, stamina, and form. Through tethering the athlete to the trainer, the trainer can provide resistance when the athlete strides away from the trainer. If the trainer then releases the tether, the athlete experiences a burst of speed. Acceleration trainers of the prior art include devices where the trainer releases a tether that remains connected to the athlete, i.e., trailing behind the athlete for the remainder of the athlete's run. As such, these devices generally do not experience a completely free release, as the tether can provide resistance as it trails along the ground behind the athlete. Also, these devices can create injury hazards, e.g., if the tether becomes tangled or caught behind an athlete, or they can create tripping hazards. Other acceleration trainers of the prior art include complex “quick-release” designs that feature relatively elaborate mechanical parts such as triggering mechanisms so that a trainer can create a free release of the tether from an athlete by actively triggering a mechanism on one end of the tether that causes movement on an opposite end of the tether to trigger a mechanical release. These devices often feature intricate parts forming complicated, impractical designs that are generally difficult to use, can fail over time, and are relatively expensive to manufacture. Further, many of the acceleration trainers of the prior art experience a “whip-like” effect when the tether is released by the trainer, which can create an injury risk for both the trainer and the athlete.
There remains a need for improved acceleration trainers.